Saturday 2 February 2013

LABOUR DAY 1894

*THE WORKER*
Brisbane April 28, 1894


THE EDITORIAL MILL.

Our Motto: “Socialism in our time.”

As Tuesday next, the 1st of May, draws near the timid hearts of the uninformed wealthy in other lands will flutter and tremble in anticipation of revolutionary Anarchist outbreaks which will shatter existing society and substitute chaos. May Day has lost its springtime significance. Its old time celebration has given places to a newer movement fraught with different aims to those of our early ancestors. The lads and lasses in England and Europe no longer dance round the May-pole in honour of the return of spring, but march in mixed solemn, sad, grave and gay procession to mark a demand for shorter hours of labour and to draw attention to a movement which stands second to none in history, and which promises at an early period to cast into the shade in its demand for settlement all other problems which now occupy the attention of some of the world's best minds.

Since the advent of the physical force Anarchist – that wild and excitable, self sacrificing martyr who can see no hope for progress in constitutional reforms – since the fearful doings of a mad police in Chicago in May, 1886, when a peaceful meeting of workers was being held in the Haymarket and a bomb, killing and injuring several policemen, was thrown by some foolish man who determined to be revenged on a body of police who it is now acknowledged were brutally dishonest in their method of working up cases, the mind of the “continental” Fat Man has been sorely exercised at the approach of Labour Day. Fortunately for the Queensland fat gentleman the workers have not been sufficiently starved in this province to produce the physical force Anarchist who is at all times ready to make and throw a bomb, and our obese Lend-lords, Landlords, and Profit-lords contemplate with some serenity the celebration of May Day by an eight-hour demonstration. The peaceful calm of our patrician wealthy lower orders is undisturbed wave perhaps by a ripple cause by the cable, “Extra police precautions are being taken to cope with the expected Anarchist outrages on May 1st.”

* * *

Mark you, Australian wage – earners are not quite free from an opinion that May Day celebrations by unionists are unconnected with physical force anarchy, Queensland is the only province which has fallen into line with the old world workers in the recognition of the universality of the eight-hour movement. The opinion lately expressed by a unionist in Victoria that May Day celebrations were “ the tail end of Anarchy,” has often been given expression to by men who ought to know better, showing that the capitalist is not the only person who wants a little knowledge of the aims and objects of the world-wide Labour movement.

* * *

However, no one in this province expects a revolutionary out break next Tuesday. The eight-hours movement in these colonies is advancing on trade union and parliamentary lines. Nothing more violent than a constitutional strike has taken place in connection with it, and the Queensland Legislative Assembly actually passed a bill in 1890 affirming that eight hours should be considered a nominal day's labour. This bill was introduced into Parliament on June 26, 1890, by “Sir” Samuel Griffith, Q.C. Premier, and was entitled the Eight Hours Act of 1890. It commenced with the preamble; “Whereas it is desirable for the general welfare of the community that the hours of daily labour should be such that workmen may have a reasonable time at their own disposal for recreation, mental culture, and the performance of social and civic duties; and whereas it would be conducive to this end to declare by law the proper duration of a day's labour.” It provided that “whenever in any contract of hiring, whether verbal or in writing, reference is made to a day's labour, or it is stipulated that the rate of payment for labour shall be calculated by the day, or at a fixed price for a day's labour, or otherwise calculated by reference to a day's labour, such day shall be taken to be labour for eight hours, unless in any case a shorter period than eight hours is, by the usage or practice of the trade or business in connection with which the labour is performed, the ordinary duration of a day's labour.”

The bill, however, permitted workmen to contract outside the Act by making special arrangements with the employers, and none of the prominent unionists, who knew how useless such a measure would prove, were sorry when it was thrown out by the responsible-to-no-person Legislative Council.

* * *

The eight hours movement in Australia commenced in Melbourne during the boom times of 1856. The gold discoveries had given a great impetus to trade, wages were high and employment plentiful. The stonemasons, as a rule in the van of progress, initiated the agitation for a reduction in the number of hours from ten to eight, ten hours a day being the usual day's labour in those times, and the movement spread with such rapidity and enthusiasm that in less than three weeks the united trades of Melbourne had gained what it has taken many workers many years to even think of asking for. The building trades of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and other cities were not many years in following the example of their Melbourne fellows, and so general has the eight hour movement become that in Brisbane the following trades and occupations have secured the reduction; Stonemasons, quarrymen, plasterers, bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, seamen, labourers, tobacco twisters, painters, compositors, iron-moulders, boilermakers, coach-makers, tailors, miners generally, united furniture trades, engineers, shearers and tanners and carriers.

This is, perhaps, not a bad record for 34 years' agitation (the Brisbane stonemasons won the eight hours in 1860), but there are so many large bodies of wage-earners still denied “reasonable time for recreation, mental culture and the performance of social and civic duties” - railway men, shop assistants, and others – that the efforts of all eight-hour agitators should be concentrated on effecting their objects by parliamentary means if it expected to accomplish a universal eight-hour day in our time.

  Eight hours' work,
  Eight hours' play,
          Eight hours' sleep, and
Eight bob a day.

The song of the early Australian reformers will remain merely a song for many years to come as far as the majority of wage-earners are concerned unless the ballot box is brought into requisition as a weapon to compel reform. Strikes are useful when men are determined and are prepared to risk imprisonment as well as the boycott to gain their ends, but the majority of wage-earners as a rule haven't the pluck to “ take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them,” Parliamentary
action is the safest; it is peaceful; it is orderly; it is swift, silent, and sure; and like the Maxim gun, can be operated by a child. We commend parliamentary action so all those who still work longer than eight hours per day, and we draw their attention to the Labour Platform and solicit their support for the Labour Party. The anti-Labour Platform Politicians will do nothing to reduce the working hours, for such a reduction means the employment of a larger number of men and women and less profit, Interest, and Rent. The prepared to at once agree to an effective law making eight hours a legal day's labour wherever practicable.

* * *

Our readers are invited to show their sympathy with the eight hours movement by taking part in the great gathering expected on Tuesday next at the Exhibition Grounds. A procession will take in the morning, at which the following societies will be represented in the following order:
  
  1. Band
  2. Eight Hour Banner and Committee
  3. Boot Trade Union
  4. Q.U.B.L.P.S. and Banner
  5. Boilermakers 
  6. Bricklayers and Banner
  7. Furniture Trade
  8. Seamen and Banner
  9. Iron-moulders
  10. Carpenters and Joiners
  11. Tobacco Twisters
  12. Stonemasons and Banner
  13. Shop Assistants 
  14. Q.T.A.
  15. Plasterers and Banner
  16. Waterside Union
  17. Painters

On the grounds every arrangement will be made for the comfort of visitors, who will be provided with a programme of sports, will have a chance of winning valuable art union prizes, and will have the satisfaction of knowing that all moneys accruing from the demonstration will be devoted to liquidating the debt on the Trades Hall. W. G. H. 

 
*THE WORKER*
Brisbane May 5, 1894


EIGHT HOUR DAY.

All Brisbane turned out to view the Eight Hour procession which was celebrated on Labour day, the 1st of May. The procession this year was much larger than it has been for the two previous years, and as it gaily marched down Queen – street on the way to the Exhibition Grounds it was admired by thousands of onlookers who lined the roadway and side walk. First in order was the Eight Hour committee with its beautiful banner headed by the Naval Brigade Band. Then followed the Boot Trade Union, stronger in number than any other society in the procession, and moreover, the sons of St. Crispin sported a very nice new banner. After the bootmakers came the Ship-wrights, in the midst of whom was borne aloft a splendid model of a full rigged ship. The Boilermakers came next. After them the Furniture Trade Union, who were immediately followed by the Brisbane Volunteer Fire Brigade with reels and horses most tastefully decorated with beautiful flowers. Then came the banner and members of the Federated Seamens' Union, being followed by a band heading the Ironmoulders, who displayed the figure eight made of beautiful flowers.

Next came the banner and members of the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, then the Tobacco Twisters' Union followed by a band, and then the Stonemasons' Society who displayed on lorries the manner in which stone is worked by them. Next in order came the smart-looking Shop Assistants, who were followed by the Queensland Typographical Association, whose display left more impression on the minds of those who saw it than did anything else in the procession. It represented Bellamy's allegorical coach. On a vehicle were comfortably seated three “Fat Men,” representing “Rent,” “Interest,” and “Profit,” and a very brazen-faced young lady flashly attired, representing Pleasure. Driving the coach was a man who indeed looked very grim and gaunt, emblematic of Hunger. The coach was pulled along by the workers themselves in adapted costume, thus showing the lesson that Edward Bellamy has made clear. The Plasterers followed with their splendid banner, and the procession was closed by the Painters. There was plenty of lively music during the whole length of the route, and all, excepting the Fat Man, were delighted at the success of the demonstration. At the grounds was provided an excellent programme of sports which was carried out successfully, to the great satisfaction of a crowd of visitors numbering about seven thousand.

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